


All Flesh is Grass

by Anonymous



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: (...de-alienization?), Anesthetized patient nonconsensually used for invasive exam/procedure practice/training by students, Dehumanization, Living anatomy model used repeatedly for painful/invasive medical procedure practice, Other, Vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:22:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28650486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dirina's body is a gift to science. Except she's not the one giving it. And she's not even dead.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous, Bulletproof 20/21





	All Flesh is Grass

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the anonymous meme prompter who mentioned tropes along these lines some time ago, I can't find the original link but your suggestion was very good for my id.

<I am the servant of honor,> Dirina repeats to herself. Many lives have been destroyed by this war. Hers is no more fragile than anyone else’s. If she must be shamed this way, at least the Yeerks are not using her to shoot down her cousins. <Where there is life, there is hope.>

But hope had been destroyed months ago, and she was not lucky enough to die with it.

Vesnir 331, in a Hork-Bajir host, addresses his students. “Okhar 705 will be assisting with our demonstration today. Please give him your full attention.” There’s no need for him to tell the students that, of course. Their hosts’ eyes are fixed on Dirina, rapt with curiosity. It’s probably the most exciting class since they learned how to pilot Bug Fighters.

Vesnir picks up a syringe from a large, low table, and places a firm hand on Dirina’s shoulder. “This is a mild anaesthetic. It will prevent Okhar from being overwhelmed by the process, until he can morph back.” He clears away a tuft of fur, and there’s a tiny _click_ as the liquid trickles into her.

“Shouldn’t he be able to do that himself?” asks one of the Taxxon-Controllers.

“Good question,” says Vesnir. “Most of what Yeerks can produce is limited to the ear canal region during infestation. There are cases of Yeerks being able to retain consciousness and control even when their host is seriously injured, but these are generally for short-term spurts.”

“Like an adrenaline rush,” says a Human-Controller. “For humans, that is.”

“Yes,” says Vesnir. “For a long-term, deliberate procedure, it’s good to have a backup. Just in case.”

Okhar swivels Dirina’s stalk eyes so they’re facing away from the class. It hardly matters; her main eyes are still there for all the Controllers to meet.

“Stalk eyes, as you see, can move independently of the head,” Vesnir begins. “Andalites can use these in a fight to have a clear view of all directions. Don’t think one-dimensionally, if you ever have to face one head-on.”

Okhar raises Dirina’s tailblade. She cannot even flinch—her subconscious instincts, too, are overriden by the Yeerk. Carefully, he aims toward her head, then pauses to hold it level. Slashes once, twice. Her stalk eyes fall to the floor, a few drops of silver blood coating the stumps. Okhar crouches to pick them up with delicate hands. The only consolation is that they can no longer see. The impossible, twisted geometry of first beholding the ceiling, then Dirina’s hands, then Vesnir’s as Okhar passes them to the instructor is spared from Dirina’s senses, only her imagination. Vesnir hands them off to students at opposite ends of the first row. “Pass them around,” he suggests. “Gentle.”

“Andalites, unlike many of the species you’re used to, don’t have mouths,” Vesnir continues. “They absorb nutrients via their hooves, both water and grass. If you’re ever stationed on a planet like Earth, the grasses there would be edible—but not to worry, we won’t be sending Andalite-controllers there too often!” He nods at a low trough on the side of the classroom. “Drink up.”

Okhar trots over, raising Dirina’s left forehoof to the basin. The drug must have been very mild, because the water jolts her senses and makes her too conscious of every sense—sight, of course, a blur with her stalk eyes gone.

“Andalites communicate by thought-speech,” says Vesnir. “We think this evolved from a gestural system, via heightened interpersonal empathy. However—fortunately for us—they do have ears to detect sound waves. Maybe those evolved to warn of predators in the area, or just to track weather patterns.”

Okhar arcs the tail again. Dirina tries to imagine that she’s only trimming her fur, or nuzzling up with her _shorm_. Then the top of her ear is flung on the ground, and her tail glitters with silver ooze.

<Take the other one too,> Dirina taunts him. <Then we don’t have to listen to the professor.>

“Can we see Okhar?” asks one of the Taxxons. Taxxon-Controllers, she reminds herself. As wretched as the many-legged creatures may be, they are not the Yeerk within. “Through the ear?”

“Not unless you want to cause him a great deal of discomfort,” says Vesnir. No such luck, of course.

Then he’s standing behind her, and without stalk eyes, Okhar and Dirina can’t see the scalpel he picks up. “The tail likely evolved as a prehensile limb. It’s denser and stronger than the arms, which are fairly weak compared to human or Hork-Bajir arms. The blade is, of course, used to repel predators; it can be used as a blunt object as well as to slice. Contrary to popular belief, there is no significant difference in the sizes of men’s versus women’s tails.”

There’s a dull sensation of being off-balance, and Okhar quickly shifts their weight to Dirina’s two forelegs. Then Vesnir emerges, bearing Dirina’s tail between his hands. The students lean forward; this is the mighty Andalite blade? Hanging limp from a dead strand of fur?

Absently, Vesnir snips the blade off from the tail, then gives them to two different students to pass around. “Careful,” he says. “It’s still sharp.”

When they’ve made it a few seats back, he asks, “Can anyone explain the significance of the Andalite waste expulsion organs?”

“Do they harbor symbiotic bacteria?” suggests a Hork-Bajir-controller.

“Good guess,” says Vesnir, “but no, we’re the only symbiotes they need.” If Dirina could expel waste here and now, she would.

“Are they prone to illness?” asks a Taxxon-Controller.

“Not specifically.”

“They need special technology to facilitate elimination in space,” says a Human-Controller.

“Very good, Tilgu 198. And this technology was...”

“The first evidence Earth humans found of extraterrestrial life,” Tilgu says.

“Yes! Luckily, humans and Andalites didn’t make contact with each other until long after.” Vesnir crouches behind Dirina, and whether it’s Okhal or the drugs, or both, there’s no pain, just a scraping sensation across her wettract.

“I can’t see,” complains a Taxxon-Controller.

“Aha,” says Vesnir. “Sorry about that.” He stands up, and unfolds a ramp tucked under the big table; it slopes gently to the floor. Without needing to be told, Okhar walks up, then buckles Dirina’s legs to lay down, her underbelly facing the Yeerk students. At least her main eyes are oriented so she can only see the walls of the theater and the doors. She’s not sure what having to watch Vesnir pick her apart would do to her.

“Is it uncomfortable?” asks a Hork-Bajir-Controller? “To crouch down like that?”

<What do you think?> Dirina mutters, where only Okhal can hear.

“It’s not very common, but for a small portion of their sleep cycle Andalites actually benefit from lying prostrate,” says Vesnir. “While they can rest standing up, this provides for longer periods of sustained recovery. Here we go...”

He slides something out of her, and Dirina can only guess what it looks like. A bag of foul water. That can expand, like a sponge, through fractal dimensions to soak up every bit of waste the Yeerks can fit inside her. But then, just when it would be full to bursting, when it might at last destroy itself and deny even the Empire the pleasure of her body, it always empties, and the cycle starts all over again.

“Now, you might be wondering, if it isn’t for the blades—is there an obvious way to distinguish between male and female Andalites. If you’re fighting one in battle, you’re not going to get close enough to see,” says Vesnir. Jokes. “But their reproductive anatomy is slightly different. Of course, unlike us, Andalites only give birth to one offspring at a time. There were times in their history when population controls were implemented, but currently, there is no restriction, so one female might give birth to two or three children over her lifetime.”

<No,> says Dirina helplessly. <Not this. You’re already destroying me, you don’t need to feign pleasure from it...>

<Yes,> purrs Okhar, deep in the crevices of her brain, twined around her like a lover. <Yes, we do.>

<For what? A group of students who won’t remember this when they go off to study Class Five sociology?>

<For you, Dirina-Haelrit-Pingwaul. This is what you want. This is what you _deserve_.>

So he’s just trying to get a rise out of her. Fine. Dirina can ignore him.

<War was no place for you. You are too soft, too brittle to fight. Too easily shamed, burdened by the sins of princes before you. Now you can be useful, helping others learn and not needing to hurt anyone. Just flesh. A beautiful, resilient, lovely piece of flesh.>

<Shut up.>

Okhar directs thought-speech aloud, but privately towards Vesnir. <Take your time. I’m enjoying this.>

Vesnir’s claw against her abdomen. Vesnir’s scalpel slicing through her fur. Part of Dirina wishes she knew the name of Vesnir’s Hork-Bajir host so she could remind herself that this is not him, this is not what he would have chosen either. Part of her is grateful that she has no one else to pity. His touch lingers on her wound, and a wave of arousal surges through her. She’s not sure if it’s Okhar’s or her body’s.

<You do like this,> Okhar says. <If you’re lucky, you’ll get to finish before he’s finished with you.>

Dirina doesn’t reply. It has occurred to her that as debasing as this is, as helpless and hopeless as she is, being taken to pieces for the Yeerks’ amusement, hers is a rare position. Andalite-Controllers, thankfully, are few and far between. But if there was a male host body, Alloran or one of the others, the Yeerks could copulate. Breeding Andalites for hosts wouldn’t be the fastest way of gaining bodies, but it’s one way.

She tries to think of something else—if her thoughts aren’t directed towards Okhar, he won’t hear them now, but there’s no telling what he might stumble upon in searching the memories. Recite the moons of the Anati system, the champions of the southern driftball league, the phases of a _brilche_ tree. Something dry and unemotionless that she won’t ever need to return to. Because everything she thinks will be used against her, will now be associated with Vesnir carving out what should be hers alone, explaining its dimensions and shape, passing it around for the students to drool over, figuratively or otherwise in the Taxxons’ case.

Then he slices into her. <Next time we save the stalk eyes for last,> Okhar notes. <I want to have a peek.>

Vesnir ignores him. Stroke by stroke, he takes Dirina to pieces, removes her organs as if they’d merely happened to collapse together because they were sharing the same gravitational field. <You would have us remain slugs,> Okhar says. <Sightless, voiceless, unable to take in the grass or the sun or the stars. Now you know what it’s like. Just a body.>

<That’s not true,> Dirina begins, but the theater is a haze and thought comes slowly.

“Andalites breathe oxygen,” comes Vesnir’s voice, muffled through her mutilated ear. “Their home planet is slightly less nitrogenated than Earth, but very similar to the Hork-Bajir homeworld.” He squeezes Dirina’s lung and she reminds herself that it is no different than being in the vacuum of space, or the utter emptiness of Z-Space.

<You are the servant of our people,> whispers Okhar, his words a twisted parody of the death ritual. <Your life is not your own, when the people have need of it.>

<Stop that,> Dirina says. <That’s sacred.>

<You know it is a lie,> says Okhar. <Your princes will not save you. Your honor will not save you. At least savor the pleasure you have brought to so many.>

“And of course,” Vesnir says, “Andalites have a fully doubled circulatory system. The primary heart is responsible for distributing oxygen to the brain and extremities, while the secondary is directly connected to the lungs. Now, damage there will usually lead to suffocation within minutes, but as long as we’re careful...”

He reaches for what Dirina knows must be her secondary heart, but she cannot see. Is this what Okhar feels like all the time, responsible for the maintenance of organs and subsystems that for her always functioned automatically? There’s a feeling of being pulled taut, then collapsing. Vesnir is showing the tissue, blue and silver and rotten, to the class.

She pleads to the ancient gods, to the Ellimists, to whoever will listen, that Okhar tarries a few seconds too long. That she can die here on this sterile table, and that Okhar dies with her, their mingled brains one more surprise for the class. Instead, he concentrates on the DNA of the _djabala_ within her, willing her to become something entirely new and whole. Her body shrinks down, the stub that was her tail grows into a curled loop, and the theater comes into crisp resolution. Dirina never morphed much on her own, and the _djabala’s_ instincts are muted by Okhar, even if only part of him is there and the rest is technically bound up in the extra dimensions of Z-Space. But she can tell that the _djabala_ is scared. It wants to climb, to run away from these fearsome aliens and seek the refuge of the trees.

Okhar ignores it, and promptly concentrates on Dirina’s own body. Her fur darkens, two hearts pound within her chest, her tailblade grows sharp and long behind her, her eyestalks blossom to take in every corner of the world. She is no _estreen_ , and the process probably appears disgusting to the onlookers—though not nearly as disgusting as the ongoing violation.

Now she can see the dull blue strand that was her tail, coiled around some Human-Controller’s seat. A sightless stalk eye has made it back to the front of the room. She doesn’t want to think about where her heart has been.

The students, looking at her unstained body, have the same questions. “Doesn’t this violate the laws of conservation of mass?” asks the show-off, Tilgu 198. Vesnir explains something about Z-Space physics.

“By your next class,” he says, “I want you to be ready to discuss what features make Andalites Class Four rather than Five. If you’re using a loaned host, turn it in at the Pool before leaving.” The students scatter, and Okhar draws Dirina’s stalk eyes away from where they sat—at least she won’t see any more detritus.

“Very well done,” says Vesnir. “How do you feel?”

<Tired,> says Okhar. <It takes a lot out of you.>

“Well, rest up.”

<Of course,> he says. <Can you see about getting me a Hork-Bajir and a Taxxon morph, too?>

“We’ll see,” Vesnir says.

Even Dirina knows that there are more than enough Taxxons to go around, and Hork-Bajir are, while not Class Five, still more numerous than the Andalites. Is this just a play for her attention, to get her to admit curiosity? On some level she must vocalize it, because Okhar can hear her think, <What difference does it make?>

<Taxxons can regenerate legs, and Hork-Bajir can slice their head open to confirm whether they’re uncontrolled,> he reminds her. <We could teach the galaxy so much, together.>


End file.
